Family Centers takes over Literacy Volunteers

Rob Varnon

Updated 10:39 pm, Friday, June 28, 2013

STAMFORD -- Literacy Volunteers of Stamford and Greenwich is merging with Family Centers to trim some administration costs and expand efforts to provide English language skills to immigrant families in the area.

"We're small in comparison to Family Centers," said John Raffaeli, chairman of Literacy Volunteers, explaining the impetus behind the move. "In order to offer this program to more people, we realized it would be advantageous for us to join with a larger organization."

This is the seventh merger Family Centers has been a part of since 1995.

The merger between the two Stamford and Greenwich-based nonprofits comes at a time when charities are feeling pressure to combine their operations. Donations have dwindled since the Great Recession and nonprofits have found that in order to tap foundations for grants, they need to offer more services and reach more people.

It cuts across multiple types of charities -- several behavioral health organizations are talking about merging with each other and some Hispanic groups have held discussions about potential combinations, he said.

"A number of nonprofits have been squeezed," he said of funding during the Great Recession, and so they're looking for ways to trim costs and increase services.

There are economies of scale that can be achieved by becoming part of larger groups, Cretaro said. The administration costs are reduced, and smaller organizations that merge with larger ones can get access to grant writing and public relations services they haven't been able to afford.

Being a charity that offers multiple types of services can help when its clients need a range of services, and to win grants from foundations and from corporations that prefer to see a more comprehensive approach, Cretaro added.

Raffaeli said Literacy Volunteers is in good financial shape, and that its decision to merge with Family Centers was to be part of a larger group and expand its reach.

Family Centers president Bob Arnold said the merger made sense because the two organizations have worked with each other in the past to further Family Centers' vocational division's fostering independence programs.

"There was great synergy between the organizations," he said.

The merger will add four staff members and 120 volunteers to Family Centers.

From a financial perspective, Arnold said this merger will most likely mean Literacy Volunteers will be able to expand but cost less than the $400,000 annual budget the group has been operating on.

Family Centers, according to a recent audit, had $11 million in expenses in 2011.

Like Raffaeli, Arnold expects this merger to further the group's mission in the community, especially as it works to help immigrant families whose earning power is being held back not being able to speak English.

"One of the anchors for a family is literacy," Arnold said. "You can't get past bare subsistence living without understanding the language."

Raffaeli said the majority of Literacy Volunteer clients are unemployed, so the group has added job searching and interviewing skills to its services.